


Anamnesis

by bibliosoph



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: AU, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cute, M/M, Memory, but like only sort of angst, henry is dumb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:47:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24246727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bibliosoph/pseuds/bibliosoph
Summary: There's a lake you can go to if you want to forget something, but you don't remember going there or whatever you wrote down that you wanted to forget.Henry went there, apparently. And, two years later, he finds a rock with his handwriting on it.Loving Alexander Claremont-DiazWhen was he ever in love with Alexander Claremont Diaz?
Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor
Comments: 43
Kudos: 200





	Anamnesis

There’s a lake.

The water is so light that it looks like the sky on a clear day––the sun reflecting off its surface in perfect, beautiful, golden lines. It’s truly a gorgeous thing to look at, but a problem if you get closer. Everyone knows about the lake––it’s been here since the dawn of time. Lining the lake are rocks––small and smooth. You can pick them up in your hand, turn them over a few times if you’d like. For most people, it’s a fun excursion. They go to the lake and look at the rocks or, more specifically, the writing on them. Because this lake––this gorgeous lake––is where people go to forget. They write something down on a rock––something truly horrible; the worst thing they’ve endured––and they throw it beneath the glistening surface. The lake swallows the memory whole, taking it down to the sandy bottom and letting it sit there for a while. When you wake up the next morning, you’ve completely forgotten both going to the lake and the memory attached to the rock you threw.

And that’s just how it goes.

Henry’s never been to the lake, but he’s going for the first time with Bea and Pez to look at other people’s memories––to see what they’ve wanted to forget. Some of them are quite silly, he thinks, because they seem so easy to live with. One of them is some night someone got drunk and tried to hit on a police officer. Laughable, really. Some of them are much darker, though. Things of nightmares.

They sit on the rocky shore and pass a few interesting ones between them, laughing or frowning given the writing upon them.

“Some of these are ridiculous,” Henry sighs, passing one to Bea. It’s something about eating five Big Macs in a row and throwing up on their date.

Bea looks at the rock and giggles. “Well, I don’t know. How brilliant would it be if we could forget each embarrassing moment or decision?” She frowns and grows silent for a moment before setting the rock down and taking Henry’s hand in her own. “I know there’s a lot I’d like to forget.” 

He nods in understanding and squeezes her hand. “I think all the bad things help us grow, don’t you? All these stupid, trivial embarrassments help us from making the same bad choices over and over again.”

Pez nods in agreement as Henry, with his free hand, rummages around for the next rock. He picks it up in his hand and turns it over to read the writing, but…

His breath hitches in his throat. It’s his handwriting. It’s very clearly his handwriting.

“What is it, Hen?” Pez asks, cocking his head to the side to try to see what Henry’s holding.

Henry closes his eyes and closes his hand around the stone, trying to recall what would have made him write this down. He can’t recall this, obviously, since he’s very clearly the one who wrote it and threw it in here. That’s the whole _point_.

“It’s mine,” he whispers, opening his eyes. He looks down at it again, truly puzzled. “I don’t––I don’t understand.”

Bea frowns and holds out her hand. He places the stone into her palm, holding his breath as she reads it. Her eyes grow wide as she takes it in. “Henry––”

“Did you know? Surely you knew,” Henry says, taking the stone back. It feels wrong to let her hold it for some reason. And he knows that he can’t get the memories back by simply holding the stone in his hand––that’s not how it _works_ ––but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t at least try.

“I wondered why you stopped talking about him,” Pez says.

Henry looks over at him. “What? And you didn’t think that maybe I had been a proper idiot, come here, and just got my memories of him erased? You thought I just––“ he takes a deep breath. “Sorry, that’s not fair of me. It’s––why did I write this? What does it matter?”

Bea and Pez look to each other for a moment, obviously wondering if they should tell him what they know.

“Come off it,” Henry says, “if I don’t like what I hear, I can just do it again. It obviously worked the first time.”

Bea sighs and wraps her arms around him, holding him close and running her fingers through his hair. “I don’t know why you did it,” she tells him. “But I know that it’s true. It was true for years.”

He takes in a shaky breath and wills his mind to simply recall the memories––to access them from the deepest parts of himself that he’s apparently locked away. It doesn’t work. “It’s probably because he hates me,” Henry says, knowing that it’s true. “And maybe I…maybe I couldn’t live with it knowing that?”

Pez comes round his other side and holds him, too. “That’s not it,” he says softly. “I think it’s because he _loved_ you.”

Henry bolts upright and away from both of them, getting to his feet and looking down at them with wide eyes and an open mouth. “What? You––he––I don’t understand.”

“You were…well, dating isn’t quite the right word for it, but you were _something_ ,” Bea explains. “Then you went away to his lake house for the weekend, came back, and never spoke of him again. Not in the same way, at least.”

He looks down at the stone again, at the words he apparently wrote in hopes to forget. The memory that was so painful for him that he threw it into the lake because it would make him forget it entirely.

_Loving Alexander Claremont-Diaz._

“How old was I?” he whispers. “When I wrote this? When I went to his lake house?”

“It was two years ago,” Pez tells him.

Henry closes his eyes and tries to remember two years ago––tries to recall any sort of information that could be helpful. “The cake,” he says. “We had that fake friendship that lasted about a year before the world moved on.”

Bea shakes her head. There are tears in her eyes now, though Henry isn’t quite sure why. “It was more than that. So much more. You two were––you were _happy_ , Henry. Happier than I’d ever seen you.”

He can’t process this. The words don’t quite make sense to him. If he loved Alex and Alex loved him back, why would he want to forget? Love has been something he’s yearned for his entire life––something he’s desperately sought out. If he finally had it within his grasp, why would he come here? What was so bad about Alex that made him want to forget? It doesn’t make any _sense_. It doesn’t seem _right_.

He recalls, vaguely, a stream of peculiar texts from Alex from roughly two years ago. They hadn’t made sense to him then which was why he had told Alex to stop texting him. They were cruel things––things about Henry ignoring him and running away, but he hadn’t understood what Alex was talking about. Truthfully, he thought Alex had the wrong number.

“Why did I leave the lake house?” he asks, desperate for answers. There are tears in his eyes but they’re tears of grief for something he doesn’t even recall losing in the first place.

“I don’t know, darling,” Pez tells him. “He’s the only one that knows.”

Henry thinks about it for a moment before he sticks his chin out and slides the rock into his pocket. “Right. Well, we’re leaving.”

The other two get up in protest. “Henry, if you’re that upset––”

“I need to go,” he says, certain. “I need to go find him and ask him. Where does he live these days? Do you know?”

“New York, I think,” Bea says.

So that’s where Henry goes. Shaan is surprised that he’s making the request, but he complies and looks a bit too smug about it for Henry’s liking. For the entire plane ride, Henry fidgets with the rock, turning it over in his hands. He’ll get answers––he has to. It feels like something he should remember despite the lake, like his brain should still somehow retain the memory of Alex’s skin against his own or the way he felt about him. It’s maddening to know that he had all of these feelings but doesn’t remember a single one of them. If he tries to remember things, it leaves his mind aching and burning like he’s setting his brain on fire or something.

The plane ride feels like it takes years, not hours. As does the car ride when they touch down. Henry is motionless, save for the repetitive turning of the stone in his hand.

When they arrive outside of an apartment building, Henry practically sprints out of the car. It’s raining but he can’t bring himself to care much because each step he takes brings him one step closer to the truth. There’s an intercom system with a bunch of names and numbers, so Henry quickly scans the list until he finds the only one he cares about. He hits the button once and waits, hoping that Alex is home. It’s the evening, now, and the sky is dark above him. Alex should be home, right? If memory serves––well, he knows it bloody well doesn’t, apparently––Alex is a great student and would probably be using this seemingly random Tuesday night to study. He’s a law student now, Henry thinks. Maybe. He hasn’t really paid him much attention.

“Who is it?” Alex asks over the small, static speaker.

Henry releases a breath he doesn’t remember holding. “It’s––it’s Henry. Er, the Prince of Wales?”

He hears Alex groan and it makes him cringe. If he’s come all this way and Alex won’t let him up, Henry doesn’t know what he’ll do with himself. “Why are you here?”

“I––I want to talk,” he explains. “It’s important, I swear.”

There’s a beat of silence where, presumably, Alex is deciding whether to let him in or not. Like a nervous child, Henry finds himself bouncing on his toes anxiously as he waits for Alex to respond. He doesn’t even get a response, though. There’s just the alarming, dreadful tone of Alex unlocking the door.

The entryway of the building is small and cramped. One wall is lined with mailboxes, another housing the lift, and the other having both a stairwell and a door. The list outside said that Alex was in apartment 204, so Henry decides that the stairs will get him there faster than the seemingly old lift. He takes them two at a time which is probably the most un-princely thing he’s ever done in his entire life. By the time he gets to the second floor, he’s pink-faced and more nervous than he’s ever been before. He quickly finds the door marked 204 and takes a deep breath before knocking.

It takes Alex a moment to come to it, but Henry hears him begrudgingly slide the chain off and unlock the deadbolt. Then the door opens and Alex is standing in front of him.

His hair is a mess of unkempt curls on his head and he’s wearing an NYU sweatshirt and sweatpants, obviously working on something. Henry can’t help but note the glasses sitting low on the bridge of his nose, too. He had no idea Alex wore glasses. Above all, Henry notes the bags under his eyes and the creases on his forehead. He looks positively exhausted.

Alex must note him staring because he rolls his eyes and steps back, letting Henry into his apartment. Henry steps in but doesn’t say anything because he has no idea where to even begin. His hand slips into his pocket, fidgeting with the stone again as he takes in the apartment. It’s small but very comfortable and lived-in with a big couch and a plethora of books and binders scattered around. There’s an impressive collection of plates and mugs by the sink and a few more on the coffee table by the sealed-off fireplace and the television mounted on top of it.

“Are you just gonna be silent or do you have something to say?” Alex asks him.

Henry just looks at him, trying to piece this all together in his mind. He’s coming up short, of course. Alex is beautiful, but he’s also extremely rude. Maybe that’s why Henry broke it off with him?

“Can I get you a glass of water or something, Your Highness?” Alex asks, moving over to the kitchen area.

“You don’t have to ca––”

“Call you that?” Alex chuckles to himself, shaking his head as he pulls out two glasses. “Yeah, I know.”

Henry frowns and sits down on the sofa, waiting for Alex to come back. When he does, he sets a glass of water down in front of Henry but his own drink is dark and golden. Whiskey, Henry thinks.

“Do I not get an alcoholic beverage?” he asks with a raised eyebrow as he takes a sip of the water.

Alex sits down in the armchair across from him and shakes his head. “I actually need it. Seriously, Henry, what is this? It’s been two years of literally no word from you and now you show up in New York out of the blue? I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought you were the Prince of, ya know, England. Why are you here?”

Henry sets down his glass as he tries to find the right way to go about this. _Is_ there a right way to go about this? Henry would really love a manual or instructions or something. “I––can I ask you something?”

Alex laughs but it seems like it’s mostly to himself. “I mean, why not? You came all this way––it’s the least I could do for a Prince.”

Henry shakes off the sarcasm and tries to collect his thoughts. “Could you tell me, er, about the lake house?”

The words make Alex freeze. He swallows––Henry can see the movement in his throat. “What about it?”

Henry’s been in the spotlight long enough to know when someone is trying to hide the emotion in their voice, and that’s exactly what Alex is doing right now. “What happened? From your perspective, I mean.”

Alex takes a deep breath and moves the glass in his hands, obviously not enjoying this conversation. “You remember,” he whispers. “You were there.”

Henry bites his lip, trying not to show that no, in fact, he doesn’t remember it at all. “I’d just like to hear it from you. Your side of things, I suppose.”

It looks like Alex thinks about it for a moment before he sets his glass down and his jaw tenses. Oh, he’s obviously very angry with Henry about it. That much is clear. “I took you there––I took you to my most special place. You met my fucking dad. We drank, we had sex, we had fun. I thought––I wanted to…fuck, Henry, don’t make me say this. Why are you doing this? Is this the final twist of the knife or something?”

There are tears gathering in Alex’s eyes––Henry can see them. He watches helplessly as Alex stands and moves over by one of the windows, looking out at the city. The lights from outside only illuminate the tears now running down his cheeks. The sight of it makes Henry want to cry, too, for some reason he doesn’t understand.

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” Henry tells him truthfully. “I just want to understand.”

Alex laughs and removes his glasses to wipe at his face. “You’re the one that left, Henry. You’re the one who just––and I never heard from you again. You just ignored me after. Actually, no. You didn’t even ignore me. You pretended like you had no idea what I was fucking talking about. And that––it _hurt_. It hurt so fucking much.”

“I didn’t pretend,” Henry says in a whisper so quiet he isn’t even sure if Alex hears him.

Alex does, though. The admission pisses him off. “Yeah you did!” he argues, throwing his hands in the air dramatically. “I texted you and you acted like I had the wrong fucking number or something.”

“Alex, I honestly wasn’t pretending. I––I went to the lake, all right?”

Alex rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I fucking know. It was my lake house.”

Henry gets up and pulls the stone out of his pocket, holding it out in his palm for Alex to see. “No. I went to _the_ lake. And I––I wrote this and threw it in. You know what happens when you do that, don’t you?”

Alex takes the stone from his hand and stares at it for a moment before scoffing and giving it back to Henry. “You’re fucking ridiculous.”

“It’s true!”

“I don’t doubt that it’s true,” Alex yells, more tears falling. He sits on the windowsill and looks up at Henry. “It’s––how _could_ you? After everything we had been through together, how could you just do that?”

Henry shrugs and sits down next to him. Their shoulders touch. “I don’t know, Alex. I really don’t. I can’t recall a bloody thing about you beyond our fake friendship. It’s driving me mad––has been since I found this.”

“When’d you find it?”

“A few hours ago. I got on a plane as soon as I did.”

That makes Alex laugh a bit which feels like a win. He doesn’t say anything else, though.

Henry nudges him with his shoulder. “I feel like your deep in thought. Would you like to talk about it?”

“It’s just––I _know_ you, Henry. And even if you knew what I was going to say that night, you wouldn’t do this. You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met, you know? It doesn’t make sense that you would just forget me as soon as it got too real for you to deal with.”

“I wish there was something I could say to make it better or to get my memory back so I could know what I was thinking,” Henry admits. “But there isn’t a way, not that I know of, anyway. I’d like to think I know myself, but even I don’t understand why I’d do something like this. Perhaps I was scared of it. Unrequited love is always hard.”

“It wasn’t unrequited,” Alex whispers.

Henry looks over at him, gobsmacked. “What?”

“It wasn’t fucking unrequited. That’s what I wanted to tell you that night. It was on the tip of my tongue and then you…”

“Then I left,” Henry says, recalling Alex mentioning it.

“Yeah. Then you fucking left.”

They’re silent for a moment. Alex leans his head back against the window and Henry watches him, studying his features for a moment.

“How do you feel now?”

“Like you’re a fucking asshole,” Alex huffs.

“Right.”

Alex shakes his head. “But also like I’ve missed you. Even if you haven’t missed me.”

The thought of someone missing him makes Henry smile. Maybe that’s selfish of him, especially considering he hasn’t missed Alex, but he can’t help it. “Do you still love me?”

Alex’s eyes widen. “Jesus fucking _Christ_ , H. What kind of question is that?”

Henry maneuvers himself so he’s facing him, though that means he’s barely on the windowsill now. “Please just answer it.”

Alex sighs. “Yeah, okay? I still fucking love you.”

“Good,” Henry whispers, moving a bit closer.

Alex meets his eyes then looks to his lips. “Why?”

“Because then you’re less inclined to be mad at me for this.”

Before Alex even has the chance to reply, Henry closes the distance between them. Alex instantly melts into the kiss like he’s been waiting over two years for Henry to get his shit together and do this. Which, Henry realizes, he has. And the kiss is so good––Alex’s lips are soft and perfect and his hands are already moving on Henry’s body to pull him impossibly closer. It’s so good, in fact, that Henry isn’t expecting what comes next.

It feels like his brain is being stabbed with thousands of needles all at once. He pulls back and holds his head in his hands as he cries out, trying to figure out what’s going on. All at once, thousands of images and moments flood his mind. There are clips of Alex smiling, of Alex kissing him, of Alex’s mouth around Henry’s cock. It all comes racing back into his brain in a whirlwind that leaves Henry breathless and, somehow, on the floor. When he opens his eyes, Alex’s confused eyes are staring back at him.

In those glasses that he loves.

“I remember,” Henry tells him.

“Remember what?”

Henry smiles and pulls him closer, resting their foreheads together. “ _Everything_.”

Alex lets out a sob and wraps his arms around Henry, burying his head in the crook of Henry’s neck as they defamiliarize themselves with each other. And he knows that he has two years to make up for, but somehow he thinks that everything will be okay because, against all odds, he has Alex back in his arms. And he’s never letting him go or forgetting about him again.

There’s a lake.

The water is so light that it looks like the sky on a clear day––the sun reflecting off its surface in perfect, beautiful, golden lines. It’s truly a gorgeous thing to look at, but a problem if you get closer. Everyone knows about the lake––it’s been here since the dawn of time. Lining the lake are rocks––small and smooth. You can pick them up in your hand, turn them over a few times if you’d like. This lake––this gorgeous lake––is where people go to forget. They write something down on a rock––something truly horrible; the worst thing they’ve endured––and they throw it beneath the glistening surface. The lake swallows the memory whole, taking it down to the sandy bottom and letting it sit there for a while. When you wake up the next morning, you’ve completely forgotten both going to the lake and the memory attached to the rock you threw. But the lake has bee here since the dawn of time. It knows that some memories are too important to be forgotten. So it gives them back to you when you’re ready.

And that’s just how it goes.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm @bibliothesoph on tumblr!
> 
> fun fact: this is titled "crap" on my computer!


End file.
